Dedicated to the Spirit of a Pioneer

Three years and eight months have now passed since I shed some tears at a funeral, returned to the office and started to write:

Once, in a happier time, Linda and I were going to make a movie.

We figured it would be a TV production, something for the networks or cable. It was movie-of-the-week material, a triumphant tear-jerker about a woman in peril, the woman being Linda. Still, as we dined under the stars one warm evening in Santa Monica, we couldn’t help but indulge our big screen fantasies. “When Harry Met Sally” found its way into our conversation. I suggested Meg Ryan should play our heroine.

Linda smiled and laughed and I think she blushed. Meg would do.

Hollywood is, of course, fickle, and though the extraordinary story of Linda Luschei Hunio has been optioned a couple of times, it’s never progressed beyond that.

But a few days ago, Linda’s father, Martin Luschei, called with joyful news. He was driving down from San Luis Obispo to attend the opening performance of “Lovable Blonde Seeking,” an original stage play inspired by Linda’s life and dedicated to her spirit.

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“Lovable Blonde Seeking” isn’t literally Linda’s story, but close enough. Pat Sawyer’s play tells the story of Anna, a young widow who learns she has been infected with HIV days after her husband’s death. After five years of grief and loneliness and secrecy, Anna boldly sets out to find love by placing an ad in the LA Weekly personals.

Anna’s make-believe ad and experience closely mirror that of Linda. A skillful writer, Linda took great care with her words:

LOVABLE PRETTY BLONDE blue-eyed SWF, 33, intelligent, warm, funny. I’m HIV-positive, seeking together SWM for platonic or other relationship. Call . . .

No truer personal was ever written, and none braver. Understand that she placed her ad in early 1991, in a time of greater ignorance and fear concerning HIV and AIDS, and poorer treatment as well; a time when the heterosexual mainstream was only awakening to a virus that had been ravaging gay men, IV drug users and hemophiliacs.

Linda, then, was a pioneer of the heart. Her adventure was nothing less than astonishing. Sixty men left 72 messages. Some, she told me, were “creepy,” but many said they were struck by her honesty. She would meet most at least once.

The other day, I sat through the last dress rehearsal of “Lovable Blonde Seeking” inside the tiny, 50-seat Third Stage Theater in Burbank. The story unfolds in an ingenious plot and a cast of two women and eight men, several of whom play more than one role. Sawyer, her co-director Donna Dubain and the cast provide plenty of comedy to leaven an experience that is funny, poignant and occasionally ugly.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but I will note that, in real life, Linda wound up steadily dating two men whom her friends nicknamed “Friday” and “Saturday” for obvious reasons.

Sawyer succeeded in capturing Linda’s wit, but Linda was no stranger. Sawyer, who is HIV positive, got to know both Linda and Linda’s friend Ann Copeland, in support groups. AIDS would claim Ann’s life two years after it claimed Linda’s. Although the play was inspired by Linda’s story, Sawyer named her heroine Anna as a way to honor both women.

“Lovable Blonde Seeking” opened Friday and Saturday with special sold-out performances to benefit two nonprofit education and support groups, Women At Risk and Women Alive. Linda and Ann founded Women At Risk and were active in Women Alive.

Sawyer’s plot departs from Linda’s story to make it a more universal tale of women with HIV. One of Anna’s dates, Sawyer says, is actually based on a date she experienced. Whereas Linda’s husband had been infected by a blood transfusion, Anna comes to believe that her late husband had never told her he was bisexual. This is, Sawyer says, the more common experience among women infected with HIV.

And this is a two-act play, whereas Linda’s life had at least three acts, the last being the story of when Linda met Stephen.

They had met in HIV social circles and friendship became romance. Linda and Stephen Jay Hunio, who was also HIV positive, were married as Linda’s health went into decline. I would meet Stephen at Linda’s memorial service. Less than two years later, I would write a story based on his father’s description of Stephen’s final moments as AIDS took his life, Stephen dying inside his parents’ Woodland Hills home. Like Linda, he died surrounded by people who loved him.

Stephen was buried beside Linda at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Martin Luschei told me that Stephen’s parents, Bob and Edi Hunio, would be joining them for the opening of “Lovable Blonde Seeking.”

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A funny thing happened on my way to the dress rehearsal. I parked on a side street not far from the Third Stage Theater and another car promptly parked in front of mine. A pretty blond woman stepped out and I thought--correctly, it turned out--that must be Linda. Or rather, “Anna.”

“Anna is a very optimistic, gentle woman,” actress Aurora Cravens would tell me later, after the rehearsal. “A peaceful woman. Very inspirational. . . .”

The actress, new in town, told me how, after she had won the role in auditions, Pat Sawyer had given her articles Linda had written for HIV newsletters. This may be a humble equity production, a labor of love and not money, but the role of Anna requires a powerful performance of great emotional range. The rehearsal made it clear why Sawyer and Dubain excitedly describe Aurora Cravens as “a discovery.”

Something clicked, the actress said, as she read Linda’s writings--that she felt as if she knew her.

“I feel a responsibility to her. To me she seems like a dove. Peaceful, beautiful, very inspirational. The outside is soft and gentle, but with a very tough core. . . . She is someone who brings light into the darkness.”

I like to think of Linda smiling, laughing, blushing.

Aurora will do.

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“Lovable Blonde Seeking” is scheduled to run through March 28 with performances at 8 p.m. each Friday and Saturday at Third Stage Theater, 2811 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Tickets priced at $12 may be purchased at the door or reserved by calling (818) 842-4755.

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Readers may reach Scott Harris by writing to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.